Gertrudes said:
I've occasionally been feeling tired and very sleepy after eating, which I reported earlier. It may be related to excess protein intake, although I'm not yet sure. Another thing I've been having lately is regular headaches. I have been gradually upping the carbs in the form of vegetables, but the headaches were there before and continue since. It's a bit puzzling since I never used to suffer from headaches.
It may just be digestive issues, if your digestive system hasn't yet adapted to the "new" food you are feeding it.
If you are burning stored fat then you can figure that you are releasing toxins stored in it, and that can be unpleasant. Some of the reading material can help but I have read so much lately that it just blurs together. Can anyone else remember? I seem to recall a warning to do something to insure that the toxins are flushed out through the gut and not reabsorbed. Personally I start each day with a "detox cocktail" consisting of vitamin C in water, NAC, and ALA (Alpha Lipoic Acid, not Alpha Linoleic Acid), based on Sherry Rogers advice in
Detoxify or Die. To that I have added L-carnitine for fat metabolism.
Stay with veggies with low
net carbs (total carb grams minus fiber grams). I just spent a week returning to ketosis because I had too many starchy carbs at once. That will not make you feel better, I don't think.
I had headaches until I increased my salt intake. I tried off-the-shelf bouillon, but it contained "suspicious" ingredients that may have been causing other problems. Now I have a bottle of Celtic Sea Salt at work, and I add a little to my (filtered) drinking water. Interesting taste.
Right now I'm cutting down on protein, taking digestive support supplements (HCL and digestive enzymes) and also intestinal repairers (L-glutamine, slippery elm, turmeric, aloe vera), but the tiredness after meals and the headaches can be really disabling.
Perhaps I have overwhelmed my body with too few carbs and too much protein, I don't know, but I have small rashes, bloating (much better since I starting taking some intestinal support supplements), occasional tiredness after meals (possibly protein related?), and headaches. I'll be upping the carbs at a faster rate since I'm still at very low levels, be very strict with my protein intake, and see how it goes.
Perhaps you are UNDERwhelming your body with too few carbs, but more likely it would like to thank you for that change. You are relieving it of having to dispose of all that excess glucose before it wreaks havoc in your system. You might be having withdrawal symptoms from some of the accompanying addictive anti-nutrients, though. I had problems when I introduced too many new supplements at once! I am having trouble with eczema, and I have had to increase my water intake.
I am not sure how much to recommend raising carbs. People are so different. I am able to do fine at 72 g/d, but then I eliminated all wheat and gluten (and most other grains) for the last time about a year ago. My carbs were coming mostly from things like sweet potatoes, onions, garlic, other root vegetables, ultrashakes, etc., etc. If you are coming straight from "bad" foods as advised earlier then you may need to start higher, and you may not have the advantage of blood sugar stabilization at first if you do that. It depends on whether your body is able to take the sudden change.
I can see why so many people fail at low-carb diets. This is not easy to figure out, if you run into problems, especially if you are older. But you can't
really fail unless you were wanting to. You just learn, adjust, and go on.
...And for the ones who were also experiencing post meal tiredness have you, so far, found how to overcome it?
I spent an hour or two last night going over my carb/protein/fat intake and found that I basically was taking in an extra meal's worth of protein every day. It could be poor digestion or it could be just too much food. I think I overdid it with the Atkins advice to not skip meals. I am going back to what I did at first: if I don't feel hungry then I am not going to eat. The body does not have a built-in clock that says to eat three times a day. Our ancestors ate when they had food! But until you are keto-adapted, you may need to eat regularly (or keep "throwing wood on the fire," as in PBPM). Your carbs don't have to be super-low for that to happen. Just low, like 72 g/day. But it varies a lot from person to person.
ADDED: I've been searching for a relation between ketosis, headaches, skin rashes and post meal tiredness, but everything I came across so far relates to people who have just entered ketosis, instead of having been in it for a couple of weeks (about 8) as I have. It could still be an effect of adapting to ketosis, although I'm not completely sure.
I did fine at 72 g/day, with only the occasional headache. My blood sugar stabilized and so did my weight. When I dropped to 20 g/day, though, my GI tract stopped working. I was flushing through undigested food. Both levels represent ketosis for me. The lower level is needed to lose weight at a good rate. Right now I am at about 40-50 g/day and doing OK, titrating vitamin C to keep things moving, and generally feeling better. But I am still not losing much weight at all and I am 30 pounds over what is comfortable for me, verging on what is considered "obese."
So are you really having trouble going into ketosis at all, or are you having trouble reaching very low carb intake? They are not the same thing. If your blood sugar and weight are stable, and cravings are ceasing, be glad. You don't have to hit a particular grams/day figure, and you don't have to feel like you are running on rocket fuel. That may only be a transient feeling anyway, not that I have ever experienced it.
The New Atkins approach recommends starting at a low figure to lose weight, but doesn't suggest that you need to stay there forever (unless you are super-carb-intolerant). Try to find a variety of healthy (low anti-nutrient) low-carb foods to eat, and try to minimize protein intake. I think that is where this is heading. At least until we find the
next book that changes everything again. :)
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